Accessibility in the News – January 11, 2019

Accessibility in the News — 1/11/19.

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AITN Quote of the Week

National News (U.S.)

The firm whose staff are all autistic

Peter, Evan and Brian work at a small technology firm based by the beach in Santa Monica, testing software and fixing bugs. On first inspection it seems like any other Los Angeles-based company, with tasteful art on the white walls and calm-inducing diffusers dotted about. Peter describes the working atmosphere as “quiet, but fun”, and especially likes the fact that there is no pressure to socialise, while Evan says of his employers that they are “very accommodating and understanding”. Brian describes his office as “unique”…

The Muddy Waters of ADA Website Compliance May Become Less Murky in 2019

The Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”) has been the source of a tremendous amount of litigation since President George H.W. Bush signed it into law in 1990. Over the past few years, Plaintiffs’ counsel have developed a cottage industry of sorts by filing thousands of lawsuits alleging that company websites are not accessible to the blind or visually impaired, in violation of Title III of the ADA, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in “places of public accommodation.” 42 U.S.C. § 12182(a)…

Beyonce.com Lawsuit Reminds Us How Shitty the Web Is for Users With Visual Impairment

Robbing Beyoncé Blind

Mary Conner, a legally blind woman, filed a class-action lawsuit against Beyoncé Knowles’ entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment on Thursday alleging that the superstar’s official website isn’t accessible for visually impaired users. Conner is described in the lawsuit as having “no vision whatsoever” and alleged that she tried a number of times to visit and complete a purchase on Beyonce.com in December of last year to no avail. Conner went to Beyoncé’s website to learn about the artist and buy a Holidayoncé Embroidered Pullover Hoodie online…

Panicking About CVAA? I Spoke to Game Accessibility Specialist Ian Hamilton to Find Out What it Means

Video games may get a touch friendlier to chatty players with disabilities, as new(ish) US accessibility laws governing communication features now apply to the medium. The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) only covers aspects of games like text and voice chat and their UIs, not requiring any changes to how they play, and only if developers won’t need to spend an amount of time or effort to comply. It’s not clear yet quite how much will change, but some good may come of this…

Accessibility in video games made progress in 2018, but the industry still has a long way to go

For most of the history of gaming as a medium, gamers with disabilities have had to figure out and MacGyver their own methods to play their favorite games or go without entirely. The industry never paid attention to gamers with disabilities outside of the now ubiquitous epilepsy warning as players boot up a game and subtitles. As someone with a mild form of cerebral palsy, I got used to game developers largely assuming all players were the same; the much-maligned Assassin’s Creed control schemes in the early days of that franchise were par for the course in my experience…

The FCC issued a Public Notice on December 26, 2018 seeking input on a petition from General Motors Holding LLC (“GM”) that requests partial waiver of the interoperability functionalities for accessible real-time text (“RTT”) technology, as defined by the FCC. GM intends to launch an autonomous vehicle (“AV”) ride-hailing service in the near future that will include real time voice communication capability that riders can use to communicate with customer support…

Local governments on alert over lawsuits targeting ADA violations over website documents

The public has long been able to poke around local government websites to keep track of council or commission meetings, look up records or fill out permit applications. But counties and cities across the state have recently come under legal attack by advocates for the disabled, who say that the electronic information on the public websites is not accessible to people who are deaf or blind. At least three Central Florida cities, Lake Mary, Longwood and Oviedo, have temporarily removed many public documents from their websites to protect themselves from lawsuits alleging a violation of the Americans with Disability Act…

Taco Bell employee loses his job for calling the police on a deaf customer

A Taco Bell employee lost his job for calling the police on a deaf man at the drive-thru and refusing him service. “This is my Deaf son getting discriminated against in the Taco Bell drive-thru on Dorothy Ln in Kettering,” wrote Becky Rosemont Burch on Facebook Wednesday. “He was trying to show them his order and they told him it was against company policy to take his order that way. Really?? Pretty sure the ADA would say otherwise. Uneducated people.”…

New O’Hare restroom more accessible than any other in U.S., officials say

City officials have convened a new committee to address accessibility for passengers with disabilities at O’Hare Airport. Their first order of business? A first-of-its-kind restroom that provides more accessibility than any other airport facility in the country, officials say. The new “Changing Places Restroom” in Terminal 2 opened last month. The 110-square-foot bathroom is equipped with an adjustable changing table for adults; a passenger lift system; an accessible, roll-in and transfer shower; and an accessible toilet and sink…

New foundation, Raising Wheels, raising awareness, help with accessibility

Tiffany Elkins never imagined she would give a second thought to doorway width. But it is of many accessibility matters the 42-year-old Belton mother continues to discover as her 6-year-old daughter, Molly Kate, gets older. As Molly Kate grows, the struggle to lift her on a fairly regular basis is becoming increasingly difficult, but a new foundation aims to help ease that task. The Raising Wheels Foundation selected the Elkins family as its first accessibility grant program recipient to help Molly Kate Elkins, who lives a life on wheels…

ADA Implications for Servicer Websites

When George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 (ADA), it was intended to provide equal access to those with disabilities. At the time, the internet as we now know it did not exist. As a result, no one could have predicted how the ADA would interact with online services. According to a November 2018 story by the Los Angeles Times (“Lawsuits Target Access to Website”), there were nearly 5,000 ADA lawsuits filed in Federal Court for alleged website violations in the first half of 2018 alone…

US Airlines Are Now Tracking Wheelchairs They Break or Lose

It’s happened to me, and if you fly with a scooter or a wheelchair, I bet it’s happened to you, too: a busted or missing set of wheels on arrival. On a flight from Washington, D.C., to Venice, my scooter went to Copenhagen. On a flight from Baltimore to St. Kitts, I was happy to see my scooter appear at the cabin door. But where was the back of its seat? Somehow, on this nonstop flight, it had been ripped off and was still in the cargo hold. But now, when an airline busts or loses a wheelchair or scooter the federal government will be watching…

Bryan Cranston Defends Playing A Man With Disabilities In New Film ‘Upside’

Hollywood’s Disability Problem Goes Way Beyond Bryan Cranston

Bryan Cranston has weighed in on the issue of representation in film and TV by defending his decision to play a person with a disability in the new movie “The Upside.” In the film, which hits theaters this weekend, the former “Breaking Bad” star plays a wealthy quadriplegic who hires a former criminal, played by Kevin Hart, to be his caregiver. “As actors we’re asked to play other people,” Cranston told the British Press Association, according to a BBC report on Tuesday. “If I, as a straight, older person, and I’m wealthy, I’m very fortunate, does that mean I can’t play a person who is not wealthy? Does that mean I can’t play a homosexual?”…

Smart cities could be lousy to live in if you have a disability

Victor Pineda travels the world to make speeches and advise governments on urban planning and development. But when he encounters a touch-screen kiosk, he’s stymied. For people like him, who use wheelchairs and have limited use of their hands and arms, displays like these are a barrier rather than a convenience. It’s a problem that’s only getting worse as cities adopt such terminals to substitute for human cashiers and receptionists. “If a kiosk is the only way I can buy a train ticket or pay for a service or get information, I’m excluded from that,” says Pineda, who heads the consulting group World Enabled…

Website Accessibility and the Law: Why Your Website Must Be Compliant

In the U.S., apart from federal, state, and local government websites which must meet Section 508 regulations, there are no enforceable ADA legal standards to follow for website accessibility. However, just because there is no straightforward set of legal requirements for website accessibility does not mean that your business will not be presented with a lawsuit. This has understandably raised alarm. Most countries provide laws protecting the civil rights of disabled persons for homes, parks, businesses, and educational facilities. What is not universal is website accessibility…

Business owners beware: 2019 promises an increased number of Federal class action lawsuits alleging that company websites and point-of-sale terminals (“POS”) violate Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). A business owner can end up paying substantial monetary damages and attorneys’ fees, in addition to the expense of redesigning and modifying their business platform to accommodate the plaintiffs. Title III of the ADA requires businesses to remove obstacles that interfere with the ability of disabled persons to access their products or services…

ADA seminar aims to make southwest Georgia more accessible

Architect David Maschke hosted a seminar Wednesday focusing on and attempting to clarify the Americans with Disabilities Act for code officials, architects and engineers from around southwest Georgia. The free seminar featured a presentation by Georgia’s senior ADA architect, Steven R. Jones, who reviewed some of the more technical aspects of the ADA code that are often difficult to understand. Jones led discussions in the responsibilities of design professionals and code officials to enforce and comply with the code as well as discussions on how to incorporate the ADA code into new buildings and existing structures that go through renovations…

National Federation of the Blind Sues Epic Systems: New Chapter in Accessibility Litigation for Employers and Technology Vendors

In December 2018, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) sued Epic Systems, a provider of one of the most widely-used electronic medical record systems in the country. This is a substantial development in an extraordinarily active area of litigation. Until now, virtually all website, app and technology accessibility litigation has been focused on Title III (the “public accommodation” provision) of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and equivalent state laws, which protect consumers…

‘It doesn’t mean that life is over:’ Professor talks living with blindness

Professor of history Martin Hardeman has been teaching at Eastern since 1992, and he is completely blind. Hardeman is a friendly face in Eastern’s history department, and he is not afraid to discuss his disability or poke fun at it. He said he was born with glaucoma, which is an eye disease that is common for elderly people to have. After a number of operations, Hardeman had partial vision from ages 18-40, but infections and accidents made him totally blind after that, he said…

KIDSPOST: Blindness pushed youths to become trailblazers

January is National Braille Literacy Month. Braille is a way of reading and writing that uses touch, not sight. Letters, numbers and other symbols each have a “code” of up to six dots. The dots are punched through paper and can be felt on the other side. About 700,000 Americans younger than 21 are blind or have serious vision problems, even when wearing glasses. Braille lets them read and write on their own. Before its invention nearly 200 years ago, most blind people were illiterate, or unable to read or write. Their lives were very difficult…

Architect says going blind has made him better at his job

A middle-aged architect who lost his sight in 2008 has found a way to continue practicing his profession, and even grow in it. He said blindness has ironically made him a better architect. Downey lost his sight after an operation to remove a benign tumor in his brain. “Lots of people, friends that were architects … would say ‘Oh, it’s the worst thing imaginable, to be an architect and to lose your sight,’ but I quickly came to realize that the creative process is an intellectual process,” said Downey. “I just needed new tools.”…

Networking While Face Blind: 3 Ways One New Yorker Does it

I’m entering my fourth month at my new job, and the jig is up—any day now, my coworkers are going to realize that I still don’t recognize them and never really did. I have mild prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder that impairs face perception, and I’ve had it my entire life. Prosopagnosia can result from neurological damage such as stroke or trauma, or appear congenitally. In severe cases, the afflicted may not be able to identify their spouses or even their own reflection in the mirror…

Jack Fact — According to the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD), there are 342,000 young people in New York City who are living with disabilities. About 10 percent of the nearly one million New Yorkers of all ages who have self-identified as living with disabilities are estimated to use wheelchairs.

International News

IPOPHL eyes to ease limitation on accessible formats

More persons with disabilities (PWDs), not only the blind or visually-impaired, may soon have wider access to alternative information materials as the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) eyes relaxing certain rules on copyright protection, thus, liberalizing the mass production of materials in “accessible format” such as Braille and audio books. In a statement, IPOPHL said this will be a good development following the country’s accession to the Marrakesh Treaty last month, which provided wider access to novels, textbooks, and other printed materials for more than three million visually-impaired Filipinos…

How UK airports can get off the ground

Travelling, whether for business or pleasure, should be easily accessible to all. From the moment a person checks-in at the airport, up until they collect their luggage at their final destination, the end-to-end customer journey should be straightforward, regardless of individual requirements. However, in recent months, a number of travel hubs – including airports – have been criticised for not doing enough to help disabled passengers. For instance, the BBC’s security editor Frank Gardner was left waiting for nearly two hours on an empty plane after staff lost his wheelchair in March…

The world’s oldest esports team is gaming their way to longer lives

At a row of computers, the team sits, ultrafocused, fingers flying over their keyboards. The video game “Counter-Strike” plays out on their monitors as they communicate over headsets, engaged in a fierce competition at Moscow’s IgroMir Expo, Russia’s largest computer and video game convention. But this is not your average group of gamers. The slogan on their black jackets reads “We’ve got time to kill.” With an average age of 67, the Silver Snipers from Stockholm, Sweden, are the oldest esports team in the world…

‘More accessible sidewalks and crosswalks for people with disabilities’

Referring to the agreement with the Central Bank, Nahvinejad said a system providing services to the visually impaired people is to be launched for the first time in banks, Mehr reported on Wednesday. “Moreover, a per the arrangements made with the universities classes will be held on ground floor for students with disability so that they can easily attend the classes until the buildings will become accessible for them,” he added. The law concerning the rights of persons with disabilities has obliged the responsible bodies to promote accessibility for these people in the country…

New study highlights access problems for disabled at some GP surgeries

A New study has highlighted work that still needs doing to make GP practices in the Slough borough more easily accessible to disabled patients. Independent organization Healthwatch Slough carried out the investigation into 17 different practices across the town and its surrounding areas. Of the GP practices visited, Langley Health Centre and Orchard Practice performed particularly well. Each practice was marked on 20 different criteria measuring accessibility with the Orchard Practice receiving full marks…

Accessibility A Far Cry For Visually-Impaired Students

The visually-impaired students of Assam do not have access to mathematics after Class IV standard. The reason is that Assam does not have the software that is a must for the implementation of mathematics in the Braille system. This is not all. There is no college in the State for visually-impaired students. The Accessible India campaign was launched in the country by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) in 2015. However, the situation of accessibility in Assam, especially for visually-impaired students, is pathetic…

Lawyers say accessibility legislation needs timelines

The federal government’s accessibility legislation has gone to the Senate after seeing several amendments in the House of Commons, but lawyers who work with those who have disabilities say that more amendments are still needed to the bill — particularly when it comes to timelines and the complexity of the complaints process. Bill C-81, The Accessible Canada Act, aims to set accessibility standards in federally regulated areas, which include private and Crown corporations involved in the transportation industry, banking, and telecommunications…

Controversy rang out in November 2018 when the Home Builders Federation objected to councils across England wanting to increase the number of homes with universal home designed centered around accessibility. Organizations such as Age UK and the Centre for Ageing Better and Disability Rights UK released reports stating that only 7% of homes classify as accessible, causing a rift in a housing market that so poorly serves those with limited mobility. While currently trying to fight this injustice, organizations are being met with resistance in their fight for housing options that are suitable for all and meet higher accessibility standards…

Accessibility Laws in Canada – Status @ January 1, 2019

As of January 1, 2019, the federal government and the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia are at various stages of introducing accessibility laws. Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and as such has agreed to take appropriate measures to achieve accessibility and to develop and monitor minimum accessibility standards. Here is a snapshot of the current situation across the country…

Accessible tourism is tourism for all

There is an increasingly strong financial incentive for those involved in tourism to make their facilities safe and accessible equally to everyone. For different reasons – including rapid ageing, numerous debilitating medical conditions (that often go unnoticed), accidents, convalescence and even being pregnant – nearly 25% of the world’s travelling population find their physical and sensory abilities of visible or hidden nature restricted to a significant level for a short time or for a long time, often suddenly. It could happen even during a flight, on embarkation or over the stay here…

World’s first fully-accessible condominium to be built in Pickering

Pickering has approved the world’s first fully-accessible condo, planned for a parcel of land north of Highway 401 on Pickering Parkway. It’s a development that officials say will fill a need in both the community and the region. “I’ve sat on the accessibility committee here in Pickering for about four years now and we saw a number of designs and graphics and blue prints that would come in for development in the community, and none of them were accessible or they’d be minimum,” said Dan Hughes, Liberty Hamlets Inc., president and managing director…

HC for Centre, RBI reply on plea to make currency, digital means accessible to visually impaired

The Delhi High Court Tuesday sought response of the Centre and the RBI on a plea seeking to lay down standards to make physical currency and digital means of financial transactions accessible to visually impaired persons. The plea, filed by an organisation working for empowerment of visually impaired persons, also sought laying down standards for design of bank notes and coins and to provide technological solutions viable for the visually impaired within six months…

Going on holiday isn’t a basic human right but travel should be accessible to all

Imagine every time you went abroad you had to declare how many units of alcohol you would be likely to consume or if you would be taking illegal drugs? Or simply likely to fall asleep in the blistering sun and become sick from sun stroke? Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, when you travel abroad with a disability, you have to be prepared to disclose information about your pre-existing medical conditions, including your mental health. It can sometimes feel like you are being interrogated and something as simple as going on holiday can turn into a very costly ordeal…

New Delhi Book Fair 2019 places needs of readers with disabilities in the spotlight

From steel railings to wheelchairs to sign language interpreters the 27th edition of the New Delhi Book Fair currently on in the national Capital puts inclusion firmly in the spotlight. This year’s theme is Readers with Special Needs and the focus is on inclusive education. The books on display include a wide variety and reflect the educational needs of people with emotional, behavioural and learning disabilities. All positive signs, says Abha Khetarpal, writer, counsellor, and teacher…

Riders with disabilities will push for more accessibility at TTC board meeting

The new TTC board is scheduled to tackle the ongoing effort to improve accessibility on the transit system at its first meeting Thursday, but advocates for people with disabilities say that effort isn’t going far enough, fast enough. “Frankly, I’m quite appalled,” said Franklyn McFadden, a transit rider and accessibility advocate who relies on a power wheelchair. McFadden, 32, will be watching as the new TTC board discusses the $9-million purchase of 48 new minibuses — wheelchair-accessible vehicles will be used to augment the transit system…

The Commonwealth Bank has settled a discrimination case in the Federal Court launched by two blind Australians over the bank’s customer touchpad terminals. Nadia Mattiazzo and former disability discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes began the landmark discrimination case against the bank in 2018 over the devices, which are found in thousands of Australian businesses. The touchpads, known as Albert terminals, are commonly found in cafes, restaurants and retail stores across the country…

AI deployed to prevent blindness in China

A Chinese hospital on Thursday launched free consultations featuring artificial-intelligence (AI) cameras to detect ocular fundus diseases, which are a major cause of blindness. Deqing county hospital in Guangdong Province became the first to use the device, co-developed by China’s search engine Baidu and Sun Yat-sen University, to serve the general public, Baidu told Xinhua. The instrument is capable of diagnosing three types of fundus disorders — diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and macular degeneration…

The Bombay High Court Thursday sought a reply from the state-run JJ Institute of Nursing in the city on a petition filed by a student whose admission was cancelled because he suffered from partial colour blindness. A bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice N M Jamdar directed the Maharshtra government and the authorities at JJ Hospital — to which the college is affiliated — to “sit together” and make their stand clear in the matter in two weeks…

Blind Bride Gets Tactile Wedding Photo Album to Remember Her Special Day

If you’re a wedding photographer, how do you serve a client who has absolutely no eyesight? A photographer and videographer over in Australia recently teamed up to create a special tactile wedding photo album for their blind bride. Photographer James Day and videographers Shaun and TJ of Lemon Tree Film House shot the wedding of a couple named Steph and Rob. Steph has a condition called Cone Rod Dystrophy. It’s an inherited eye disorder that progressed until she became completely blind shortly before she first met her future husband, Rob…

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